Yes, the idea is roughly that if you make a unique part of Reflex freeware (in this case the editor), then people will create content for it (admitted, not all of them will create good duel maps, particularly if you would have to buy the game to playtest it). Created content is good for overall activity and putting Reflex out there, on YouTube and other various platforms.
The way i see it, Reflex has 2 distinct problems which have a detrimental effect on the game's popularity and the chance to grow a larger playerbase:
1. The lack of exposure since early access launch (what this thread is basically about, boosting exposure with every means possible. The map editor idea itself wouldn't directly attract new players, but the created content and attention as a side effect might suck other people (who come across this content) into playing the game.
2. The devs' policy of silence and not paying (enough) attention to the community's wishes creates this atmosphere of abandonware. I know the devs have a lot of future plans for Reflex in their roadmap but they really have to be more active, on these forums for example, answering questions and discussing with gameplay changes. If you want to speak to a dev right now you have to get on Discord and @mention them personally. It shouldn't be like that they should come to us and be more involved with the community

Or: How to generate more exposure by separately marketing the map editor for a different target-audience.
One of Reflex's most defining features is without a doubt its map editor. Instead of having to download additional software like Radiant to get things up and running, Reflex comes bundled with a ready-to-use, easy-to-learn realtime (engine) map editor. Yet it's not heavily advertised for this unique feature but rather for its 'frag like it's 1999' style gameplay (which caters to a small, niche club of oldschool gamers). In short: it doesn't quite get the attention it deserves.
It could spark some major interest if Reflex's map editor was marketed in a different manner, for example by being offered as a standalone (free/trial/cheap/bundled with game assets) product, such as the Unreal engine. Creative people would pick it up and play with it, resulting in maps and generated content (streams, youtube, tutorials).
Possible ways:
- Release the map editor for free (or cheap, subscription based, whatever) and standalone on Steam, market it as a flexible, easy-to-use mapping tool
- Map editor only available in spectator mode, to walk around in it and play the map you have to buy a copy of Reflex
- Keep the current pipeline to the workshop, so people can offload their maps (and get all hyped about it because it will be featured in the game itself, giving them a reason to buy the game)
- If people want to add existing brushes to their map, they also have to purchase the game on Steam (for the assets)
- Maybe give a small discount (coupon code) for the full game after giving the map editor a try
???

True, i guess this way would work so much better in CPM, where global sounds didn't exist (you could time your own pickups ofcourse, but it was harder to keep track of enemy pickups so an AHK script wouldn't work in this case). CPM somehow was an excellent tradeoff between the combat/damage game and picking up armors. With the lack of global sounds, not many players would time an item to the very second precisely which shifted the gameplay more around dealing damage/punishing positioning and not so much the pacman style gameplay we see now in Reflex

@hArD_a$$_nIqQa I once came up with this (imo pretty neat) solution: Instead of watching the clock to time items accurately, imagine you could see the item 'build up'. Try to visualize a transparant bucket, slowly filling up with water so you can see when it's full (and about to spawn). This would make (simple) maths during gameplay redundant, since you can visualize the item timings. Also it would impose a risk to go and peek around the corner to get info on when the armor is filled up, so it can be punishable too.
Nobody ever considered it though
edit: other method: http://www.esreality.com/post/2782833/re-armor-idea

@Sharqosity Yeah i was thinking about that too, it would also work against afk players
Can also combine small shallow pool of lava underneath and the water climb above, so the attacking team is still delayed by having to climb so you don't have to change the map at all

It's actually pretty fun with a bunch of players on the server, refreshing to play something else than 1v1.
Wish we had more of these minigames maps coming!
@Sharqosity possible exploit for attacking team: can simply wait at spawn, due to higher stack you will survive the health reduction towards end of match

Devs should have made Reflex watertight. Lua scripting in theory is nice, but if you allow scripting in a competitive environment then obviously there are going to be players taking advantage of it. Really it does more harm than good. And it wouldn't hurt the 'open source creativity blabla' by locking down lua, because the biggest input of creativity comes from mapping imo (audio effects and sparks (non lua) should be the exception here, as everyone has access to that through the workshop and armor/mega sounds are now locked to 3 seconds). What's happening right now is that there are a few lua scripts floating around on Discord every once in a while, so basically you're being forced to 'keep up' with the meta. I don't think that's desirable. Imagine you're going on a vacation and in the meantime some dude has worked on yet another lua script that gives some microadvantage, if you add up all these things, the advantages become bigger and bigger. NOT TO MENTION the widgets that are being coded privately and not shared amongst the community.
Some examples of widgets that are floating around on Discord/other places besides workshop:
spawnplates widget (seeing spawnlocations on map during match)
armor/mega timing widget (timing all of your GA/YA/RA/Mega pickups during competitive match)
nameplates widget (could potentially be advantageous in team/CA matches because it shows hp/armor of teammates and where they are)
It's really so simple to use LUA to your advantage. If you take the Kyto timestamp widget for instance, and you just add +25 seconds, you effectively designed a ghetto timer.
Or, you bind a lua script to a key and you let it countdown 25 seconds from the moment you heard the enemy RA pickup. (these are just some examples).
tl;dr, even if players don't have malicious intentions with lua, they are basically being forced to keep up with the meta or even use shady widgets to their advantage, because if they don't, then certainly other players will.

my dear gents, i have some requests (again, i know):
- demo uploading and rendering to IGMB (by Maverick, which automates the process of uploading demos and turns them into YouTube VODS) see http://www.igmdb.org/?page=render
Now, i was talking to Maverick about this and he said it's easy to implement as long as the game's audio can be recorded in an audio file, or even in a complete .avi file along with the video.
As of right now it's only possible to export .tga files but no audio, so the only option to offload VODS to YouTube is to use a recorder like XSplit or Fraps and just record the whole 10 min demo.
So he kindly requested that a .wav audio capture be implemented, and he'll work on the back-end of it. (P.S. please donate this guy if this happens, he did a lot for the community).
Long story short: more publicity for the game through YouTube rendering (free) and a very easy way to upload a demo without having to do anything by yourself.
- Hooneymode! (duel mode but fraglimit 1, roundbased) great way of learning new spawns and a great boost to help new players improve (knowing what to do off the spawn).
Hooneymode also offered the option to choose your own spawn point, so you can create different scenarios for starting a match and practice them (not random).

I think i finally found the cause of my sloppy fps since the update. I noticed there was a correlation between the low fps and when i was playing players with higher ELO that attracted many spectators. I checked several times and the FPS drops the moment the spectators are flooding in. (3+ spectators makes it lag). @shooter